Mulholland Drive is a street and road in the eastern

Santa Monica Mountains The Santa Monica Mountains are a coastal mountain range in Southern California, next to the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Transverse Ranges. The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area encompasses this mountain range. Because of its p ...

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

. It is named after pioneering Los Angeles civil engineer

William Mulholland William Mulholland (September 11, 1855 – July 22, 1935) was an Irish American self-taught civil engineer who was responsible for building the infrastructure to provide a water supply that allowed Los Angeles to grow into the largest city in Cal ...

. The western rural portion in Los Angeles and Ventura counties is named Mulholland Highway. The road is featured in a significant number of films, songs, and novels.

David Lynch David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946 – January 16, 2025) was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Lynch was often called a "visionary" and received acclaim f ...

, who wrote and directed a film named after Mulholland Drive, has said that one can feel "the history of Hollywood" on it.

Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, often playing rebels fighting against the social structure. Over his five-de ...

has lived on Mulholland Drive for many years, and still did so .

History

The main portion of the road, from Cahuenga Pass in Hollywood westward past Sepulveda Pass, was originally called Mulholland Highway and was opened in 1924. It was built by a consortium of developers investing in the Hollywood Hills. DeWitt Reaburn, the construction engineer responsible for the project, said while it was being built, "The Mulholland Highway is destined to be one of the heaviest traveled and one of the best known scenic roads in the United States." The street has experienced multiple closures throughout the years due to mudslides and storm damage, with the latest one being in 2024.

Geography

The long mostly two-lane, minor

arterial road An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights o ...

loosely follows the ridgeline of the eastern Santa Monica Mountains and the

Hollywood Hills The Hollywood Hills is a residential neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It borders Studio City, Universal City and Burbank on the north, Griffith Park on the north and east, Los Feliz on the southeast, Hollyw ...

, connecting two sections of

U.S. Route 101 U.S. Route 101, or U.S. Highway 101 (US 101), is a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the United States. It is part of the United States Numbered Highway Syst ...

, and crossing

Sepulveda Boulevard Sepulveda Boulevard is a major street and transportation corridor in the City of Los Angeles and several other cities in western Los Angeles County, California. The street parallels Interstate 405 for much of its route. Portions of Sepulveda ...

, Beverly Glen Boulevard, Coldwater Canyon Avenue,

Laurel Canyon Boulevard Laurel Canyon Boulevard is a major street in the city of Los Angeles. It starts off at Polk Street in Sylmar in the northern San Fernando Valley near the junction of the San Diego ( Interstate 405) and the Golden State (I-5)) freeways. Laurel ...

, Nichols Canyon Road, and Outpost Drive. The road offers views of the

Los Angeles Basin The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary Structural basin, basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an wikt:anomalous, anomalous group of east–west trending chains of mountai ...

, the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

and the Hollywood Sign. Mulholland Drive has some of the most exclusive and expensive homes in the world, housing mainly Hollywood celebrities.

Route

The eastern terminus of Mulholland Drive is at its intersection with

Cahuenga Boulevard Cahuenga Boulevard () is a major boulevard in Los Angeles, California, US. It connects the Los Angeles Basin to the San Fernando Valley, with a southern terminus at Rosewood Avenue in Hancock Park. It simultaneously transitions into Ventura Bo ...

at the

Cahuenga Pass The Cahuenga Pass (, ; Tongva: ''Kawé’nga''), also known by its Spanish name Paseo de Cahuenga, is a low mountain pass through the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains in the Hollywood Hills district of the City of Los Angeles, Califor ...

over the Santa Monica Mountains (at this point Cahuenga Boulevard runs adjacent to Highway 101/The Hollywood Freeway). The road continues to the west, offering vistas of the Hollywood Sign,

, and then

Burbank Burbank may refer to: Places Australia * Burbank, Queensland, a suburb in Brisbane United States * Burbank, California, a city in Los Angeles County * Burbank, Santa Clara County, California, a census-designated place * Burbank, Illinois, ...

, Universal City, and the rest of the San Fernando Valley with the San Gabriel, Verdugo, and

Santa Susana Mountains The Santa Susana Mountains are a transverse range of mountains in Southern California, north of the city of Los Angeles, in the United States. The range runs east-west, separating the San Fernando and Simi valleys on its south from the Santa ...

. The road winds along the top of the mountains until a few miles west of the San Diego/ Interstate 405 Freeway. Just west of the intersection with Encino Hills Drive, it becomes an unpaved road not open to motor vehicles. This part is known by many as "Dirt Mulholland". This portion connects with other unpaved roads and bike trails and allows access to a decommissioned

Project Nike Project Nike (Greek: Nike (mythology), Νίκη, "Victory") was a United States Army, U.S. Army project proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories, to develop a line-of-sight (missile), line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. The project del ...

command post that is now a

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

memorial park. (This portion of Mulholland Drive was open to through traffic as late as the 1990s before being permanently closed to motor vehicles so that they would no longer interfere with the natural beauty and wilderness of the area.) The road opens again east of

Topanga Canyon Boulevard State Route 27, commonly known by its street name Topanga Canyon Boulevard (), is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs from the Pacific Coast Highway (California State Route 1) at Topanga State Beach near Pacific Palisade ...

(State Route 27) at Santa Maria Road but remains dirt until it reaches Saltillo Street. Shortly thereafter, the thoroughfare splits into Mulholland Drive and Mulholland Highway. Mulholland Drive terminates at U.S. Highway 101 (the Ventura Freeway), where it becomes Valley Circle Boulevard. Mulholland Highway continues to the southwest until it terminates at State Route 1 (PCH) in Leo Carrillo State Park at the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

coast and the border of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and Ventura counties.

References

External links

* {{coord, 34.1313, N, 118.49, W, source:kolossus-frwiki, display=title * Streets in Los Angeles Streets in Los Angeles County, California Santa Monica Mountains Streets in the San Fernando Valley Roads in Los Angeles County, California Hollywood Hills Landmarks in Los Angeles San Fernando Valley Tourist attractions in Los Angeles Westside (Los Angeles County)

History

Geography

Route

See also

References

External links